Wood on Words: Non’ is opposite maker  except when it’s not

“Not” is a small word, but its effects are large. It can even be the difference between life and death, depending on what a judge or jury decides.

Barry Wood

“Not” is a small word, but its effects are large. It can even be the difference between life and death, depending on what a judge or jury decides.

The prefix “non-” means “not,” as well as “the opposite of,” “excluded,” “refusal or failure,” and so on. But “non-” does not always signify negativity or contrariness.

Sometimes, “non-” at the beginning of a word is actually a form of “nona-,” meaning “nine.”

Examples include “nonagenarian” for “between the ages of 90 and 100”; “nonagon,” “a plane figure having nine angles and nine sides”; and “nonet,” a musical composition for nine performers or the group itself.

But here’s an interesting wrinkle: The word “noon” traces back to the Latin expression “nona hora,” or “ninth hour.” In Old English, it became “non,” which Webster’s says originally referred to “the ninth hour (by the Roman method, reckoning from sunrise).” That worked out to 3 p.m.

We also have “none” (pronounced the same as “known”), often capitalized, for “the fifth of canonical hours; midafternoon prayer.”

And then there’s “nones,” also sometimes capitalized, “the ninth day before the ides of a month” in the ancient Roman calendar.

In that calendar, the “ides” was the 15th day of March, May, July or October, but the 13th of the other months. Because the Romans used inclusive counting, that would make the nones the seventh day for the first group and the fifth for the rest.

So, the hour that we now consider the 12th in the day (noon) used to be 3 p.m., which was the ninth hour. And “none” was the fifth hour, but “nones” was the ninth day, which could be the fifth or the seventh.

Confusing, yes?

And that’s not counting “nonillion.” But no one is likely to count to nonillion, which is “the number represented by 1 followed by 30 zeros” — or in the British system, a 1 followed by 54 zeros.

This makes me think of another “non-” word, “nonsensical”; that is, “unintelligible, foolish, silly, absurd, etc.” But maybe it’s just me; I’m not a numbers person. Too many numbers make my brain numb.

So let’s get back to some no-nonsense stuff.

The prefix “non-” can be attached to any word to give it the opposite spin. The dictionary contains an extensive list of hundreds of such creations on five pages, from “nonabrasive” to “nonyielding.”

They are separated from the regular listings with the explanation that they are “the more common compounds formed with ‘non-’ that do not have special meanings; they will be understood if ‘not’ is used before the meaning of the base word.”

I’ll explore some of those with “special meanings” next week. To wrap up this week, I’ll leave you with the concept of a “nonce word.”

The word “nonce” means “the present use, occasion or time; time being.” Its use these days is chiefly confined to the phrase “for the nonce.”

A “nonce word,” then, is “a word coined and used for a singular or particular occasion, or time being.”

The unabridged Webster’s offers this example: the word “ringday” in the sentence, “Four girls I know have become engaged today; this must be ringday.”

Occasionally such a creation will gain some currency and rise above its nonce status. I don’t see that happening with “ringday,” however.

Contact Barry Wood at bwood@rrstar.com or read his blog at blogs.e-rockford.com/woodonwords/.

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